Welcome to SALES with ASLAN, a weekly podcast hosted by ASLAN Co-founders Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris, geared at helping sales professionals and sales leaders eliminate the hard sell. At the end of the day, we believe that selling is serving. ASLAN helps sellers make the shift from a ‘typical’ sales approach, to one that makes us more influential because we embrace the truth that the customer’s receptivity is more important than your value prop or message.
The goal of these interviews is to spotlight various experts in the world of sales and sales leadership – sharing informational stories, techniques, and expert interviews on the sales topics you care about.
The following are notes from SALES with ASLAN Ep. 122 – Influence Begins Here – Discovering the Truth.
In this episode, Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris discuss Part 3 of Tom’s new book UnReceptive – Discovering the Unfiltered Truth. They discuss three strategies to getting the decision maker to open up about the good stuff – the informal decision drivers.
Listen to the conversation here:
Or check out the summary and full transcript below.
Summary:
The Barriers to Influence
The decision maker’s willingness to listen (their receptivity) to you as a sales rep actually has more to do with your ability to influence than the strength of your argument (value proposition).
Think about a farmer growing crops. There are two elements to be considered: the seed and the soil. If the soil is not fertile, the quality of the seed doesn’t matter – it won’t grow.
The same idea applies in sales. If the customer is not receptive, your message doesn’t matter.
Let’s dive into how to gain influence by removing those barriers, specifically the barrier between you and the truth.
Barrier #3 – Getting Your Customer to Share the Unfiltered Truth
Influence truly begins when your customer opens up and shares the nitty gritty truth. You can tell when this occurs; they might lean in, or say something like, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this…” or “I haven’t shared this with anyone but…” or “To be honest with you, I really want…”
Finding the unfiltered truth is the key to discovery. Sales rep who conduct discovery best are the most successful – it’s the most common trait in high performing sales professionals. Said another way:
You win more deals by demonstrating that you understand the problem rather than demonstrating your ability to solve the problem.
That is how you cultivate receptivity throughout the entire sales process – by seeking to understand before being understood.
Finding the truth is all about digging beneath the surface. You may think you know what your customer’s decision drivers are, but chances are, you don’t. When you’re in front of a customer in discovery, remember to shift your mindset: “I’m here to learn, not assume.”
There’s always an informal (unstated) decision driver beneath the surface – and you need the customer to tell you what it is. Get them to invite you behind the curtain. Once you’re there, you can really start to have an impact and be able to differentiate yourself from the competition.
It’s about tuning into the nuance of the individual and what drives them. Because if you don’t know what your prospect really believes, fears, or wants, you can’t address those factors.
Granted, this isn’t the most natural thing to try and accomplish. We’re typically comfortable sharing our own perspective, beliefs, and reasoning. But how can we authentically and genuinely ask someone to share theirs?
Getting to the Truth
The key to finding the truth is to Take the Trip with your customer. Taking the Trip is ASLAN’s “antidote” to this truth: when someone has a different or opposing point of view to yours, the only way to help them see your perspective is to first understand (and validate) theirs.
Remember, at this stage your goal is not to change their mind (sell), it’s to understand where they’re coming from (find the truth).
For example, you may be on “North Pole” and you see that this way is up. But your customer is at the “South Pole” and they have a completely different viewpoint. They see the world in an entirely different way from the way you do.
Until you Take the Trip and journey from your position in the “North Pole” down to the “South Pole” and see their point of view, they will never embrace your point of view, no matter how good your sales strategy is.
You need to first understand your customer’s perspective and get them to share the truth.
Here are three of our best practices to help sales reps uncover the unfiltered truth when Taking the Trip:
- Watch For Clues
- Begin Your Questions With a Reason
- Respond to Learn More
Resources:
- Check out the book here: UnReceptive: A Better Way to Sell, Lead, and Influence
- Check out full our blog post on this topic
Transcript:
00:14
Tom Stanfill
Welcome to another episode of sales with ASLAN. I am your host, Tom Stanfill, and I’m joined with my, probably the best co-host in the business, Tab. Yeah, I I’m honored to be with you, my friend, for those of you who are familiar with our podcasts, they’ll notice that something’s changed. We are, we are now going to co-host the show that tab in time, or again, it’s gonna be the Tab and Tom show, I guess that’s, what’s going to be.
00:42
Tab Norris
That’s really going to sell. I like that.
00:45
Tom Stanfill
That’s going to be in a Tab and Tom show, and we’ve been working together for now. I don’t know, 30 years, Tab.
00:53
Tab Norris
We’re pushing on 30. I know we still like each other. That’s still, well, I was a little bold of me. I still like you. Okay.
01:02
Tom Stanfill
Everybody everybody’s had that. Everybody loves Tab. That’s just, that’s just the truth of the universe of the fact that you, that we really have enjoyed working together for all these years. I thought, it’s time for change. I think we are gonna love working together and hopefully people are gonna enjoy the podcast. I’m excited about our first podcast together. You get to spend more time. Our really mission is defined people who are exceptional at serving their customers and mastering the art of selling and, invite them into the show and learn from them and what they’re doing and just help other people better at serving their customers. That’s going to be the purpose of the show. I look forward to this journey with you, my friend, but I know we got to talk about a project that we under been undertaking it as on for what? I don’t know, almost 10 years.
01:56
Tab Norris
The book the book gets out. I know, I know I’m, I’m really excited about the book unreceptive and yeah, it does. I do feel a little awkward right now because I’m in the presence of greatness. I’m a real writer. I’m a really a surprise that you, you really kind of hang in with me anymore. I’m do more of comic books. I do a lot of comics and I do some poetry, but we’re going to keep that on the down low. You’re like a real published author. So congratulations.
02:27
Tom Stanfill
Well, thank you, my friend, I have every time that someone says something about me writing a book, I’m the first thing I think about is my English teachers in high school. I mean, it’s gotta be, they’ve gotta get what I mean, one of one, it’ll have to tell you this story. One of the English teachers. Okay. I will not mention their name, hit me in the head with the dictionary as I slept through their class. I mean, I had my head down on the table and they hurled, they sick. By the way, for those of you that are not familiar with dictionary, there used to be big thick books with all the words in them.
03:04
Tab Norris
You read it.
03:06
Tom Stanfill
It was printed. It was heavy. I bet it weighed 10 pounds. I looked at that guy like I was a senior at the time. I’m sure that PR that I’m about to call them teachers then, and they weren’t professors.
03:18
Tab Norris
They’ll get a signed copy. Well, Tom, well, I’m excited. I think that’s where we’ll, let’s kinda go back. I know last episode, you and Marc talked about the book and you talked about really the first two barriers that were in the book, which number one is, changing their perception of you, right? One of the first barrier tackled and the second one being, opening a closed door, and kind of handling those barriers. If, and if you miss that, no problem. You can go back and hear that episode is fantastic. Today we are going to talk about the third barrier and discovering the unfiltered truth, which is I think the money barrier. I mean, that’s just what I always talk about. This is where the money lies my friend’s perspective. So tell us more about.
04:12
Tom Stanfill
Kind of counterintuitive. For those of you that aren’t familiar that, haven’t heard of the book, but the, the premise of the book is that the actually the receptivity of the customer, the listener, the decision maker, whatever you want to call it, whoever you’re trying to influence their receptivity, their willingness to listen actually has more to do with your ability to influence than your value prop or the strength of your argument. When this customer again, or your spouse or your child or anybody you want to try to, as you seek to influence, when they’re unreceptive, the more you try to sell them, the more unreceptive they become. Actually what we’ve been taught about selling the traditional product actually backfires. It sabotages our ability to convert to disinterested. Again, only when they’re emotionally close, if they’re open and they’re sitting across from me and they say, tell me about what I should do.
05:02
Tom Stanfill
Then, there’s activities there, and you can communicate your position. You can communicate your recommendation. The first barrier is, as you said, is their perception of you. And we got to address that. A second barrier is we got to, you got to actually get an invitation and get in the door. The third barrier, which I actually agree with you is I think the most important barrier, which is getting them to share the unfiltered truth. Because if you don’t know what they really believe and what their concerns are and their fears, you can’t address them. You can’t, you can’t address them. So, and when we have those conversations and what you think about the conversation we have with people that we don’t know very well, will you talk about very basic stuff? Whether where are you from? What do you like? You just, you don’t get into the real stuff, right?
05:51
Tom Stanfill
You keep everything formal, but the good stuff, the stuff below the surface, you want them to kind of in, and kind of, how, when you have somebody that kind of starts to trust you and they tell you the good stuff, they kind of lean and go, whoa, what’s really going on. There’s a real, wouldn’t, I mean, they always, they kind of whether they say it or not, they’re like, I haven’t told anybody this, or I don’t know why I’m telling you this, or what you really need to know is, and that’s where influence really starts right there.
06:19
Tab Norris
Yeah. That’s really good. What we found and tell me if you agree with this, Tom, but in my 30 years of doing this craziness, is he or she, that does discovery best is the most successful. I mean, it is a common trait that we constantly see in a high performing salesforce.
06:37
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. It’s like the, I think of it this way is that it’s, you’re more influential. You win more deals when you can demonstrate that you understand the problem rather than your ability to solve the problem. It’s like, if you get me, then I believe that you can you think about that? People we hire the people we like when they really articulate our problem, this is why this is happening. You go, well, then you obviously know how to fix it. And so, yeah, that’s exactly right.
07:05
Tab Norris
That’s good. Well, I see this, me, I’m constantly out in the field. I love coaching. I love riding with reps, spend a lot of time in the field and it reminds me something I saw just this past year. That to me is a perfect example of what you’re talking about. This was, this was a salesperson was very successful, but successful, but with existing accounts, right, just in there, this was a, this was healthcare. This was a, a clinic already had a couple of their products in there. And, and we’re, and I’m riding doing a little assessment and we’re getting ready to go in. We’re in the car. Well, this is, and, and he tells me, “Hey, well, my objective here, it’s going to be awesome. I’ve worked with this guy for years. I’m pumped about it. I’m going to move him. Today’s objective is to get him using that third product of ours and move him away from a competitor. I’m putting together a great plan. I’m really excited.”
I’m like, okay, well, I can’t wait to see my friend. So I, you know, he’d done his research, had it all buckled up and packaged it up. We walk up and the doctor he’s like, “Oh, Johnny, you’re awesome.” You know, hugging and talking, etc.
08:13
Tom Stanfill
They have a great relationship.
08:15
Tab Norris
Great relationship, and have worked together for years. And he goes, well, great. Well, Dr. Smith, I’m so excited, but I am really excited that we got a little time together today because I’m going to tell you about a promotion that we had. That’s going to be phenomenal. You just came out with it. It’s going to save you. I know you’ve used our competitor for this product here, but we’re going to be able to save you like 10%, at least 10% on your purchase of this product. If you’re part of this promotion. He went on to share multiple details of the promotion. I’m not even going to bore you with it. It was very well said, very articulate, very, I mean, just tight.
08:52
Tom Stanfill
His message down. Okay.
08:53
Tab Norris
Yeah. He was passionate and, and the doctor goes, “Hey, I so appreciate that. That is, that sounds like a really good program. I’m not going to go that route because I really don’t care anything about cost. That does not mean anything to me.”
09:16
Tab Norris
He goes, “but hey, if that ever changes, I’ll reach out to you. We’ve talked about that. Anyway, so tell me about the weekend,” and then they have to just skip right over, back to the good relationship.
Here we go, well, he may have blown it, Tom. I mean, he may not have the opportunity to have that conversation again. Wow. We get in the car and he’s like, what’s wrong with me?
And I said, what do you mean? He goes, I just blew it. I said, no, why did you blow it? He goes, why didn’t I just start by asking him why he uses them, what he cares about? And what’s important to him. I said, that’s probably a great idea.
09:55
Tom Stanfill
That’s a, that is, so that reminds me of a situation that I was in years ago when I was first started selling our solution. As we sell sales training and I was working with a head of learning for a pretty large organization. It’s funny, you, what, this, where the reason, what you just shared reminds me of the stories, because what you think is the driver behind the decision, like, cost or benefits and it’s stuff that people typically you think, okay, well, that’s the real, there’s always an informal driver. That’s actually more important below the surface, but for them to really tell you what that is, they, their needs, there needs to be first. You’ve got to focus on it, but they’ve got to open up and tell you, and that’s the good stuff. That’s where the, that’s where you start to go to another level.
10:43
Tom Stanfill
So, as we started working together, she finally, as were going through the process of me sharing what we can do and learning more about them, and we’d been, I think this was maybe our third meeting. She kind of finally just leaned across the table and said, okay, look, here’s the deal. I have a sick child. I mean, it was actually a pretty critically ill child who was handicapped. It was, it was quite a stressful situation. Says, I need someone who can handle this entire project. I can trust them completely to get it done because I’m not going to really be able to be involved and adult the voice lowered. I’m like, so I was like, I had this, oh. This isn’t about the dry, how the results that you’re going to see, it was like, it was almost like, it was like, it was all about implementation.
Who can I just give this to? Who will make me look good? Won’t drop the ball so I can go take care of my sick child. Like, that’s you just took me in the basement. Like, P I think of it as this way. Like people bring you into their house, ? They’re like, they bring you to the room. They orchestrate where you go into the kitchen and they are, you could go in there and we clean this all up, but you don’t go upstairs and don’t go in the basement. That’s a, but like she said, I’m going to tell you, I’m gonna tell you the truth. That’s when you really start to have the opportunity to have an impact and differentiate yourself from the competition.
12:04
Tab Norris
Yeah. Well, and that probably wouldn’t on your checklist. You probably didn’t have that written down yet. Find out about children that are struggling. You gotta be pretty tuned in and really focused on I’m here to learn. I’m here to kind of uncover the unfiltered truth. Not just the stuff that’s on the surface.
12:26
Tom Stanfill
That’s, yeah. A lot of times you, if it’s not so much, like you said, it’s not over the checklist. It, it, sometimes you just have to know there’s something here. That’s more important than probably what they’re going to tell me at first and what it’s like their job is, maybe they’re worried about a promotion. Maybe they’re worried about getting fired. Maybe they’re worried about, maybe it’s an ego thing. Maybe it’s actually, they’re just doing it. They’re doing this because of some other, like, I know sometimes people invest in our solution because they want to leave a legacy, ? That’s not something they’re going to present to the scene, but they’re like, I just want to, I want to leave a legacy. I want to invest in our people, whatever the reason is, it’s, it’s tuning into that. Yeah. It starts with having that mindset of that.
13:11
Tom Stanfill
I’ve got to see the world differently.
13:13
Tab Norris
Yeah. And, and I that’s, I, that’s where I wanted to dig in because, it’s not the most natural thing. We love to share our point of view. We, and, from what you’re talking about, and it’s really about understanding their point of view. Right. Coming down and seeing things from their perspective. That is not always the most natural thing. This is of an embarrassing story, Tom, but you’re part of it, which is, it makes it even more embarrassing. But now I must tell it is.
13:43
Tom Stanfill
This one of your comic books.
13:45
Tab Norris
That’s illustrated really well. That’s superhero. I’m the superhero by the way,
13:50
Tom Stanfill
Discovery.
13:52
Tab Norris
Discovery, man. No, you’ll find out. I teach this stuff and I’ve been doing this for about 30 years and I still struggle with it. I’m going to share of openness here.
14:02
Tom Stanfill
Okay. I’m going to share a fail after this. I’m going to share my failures. Okay.
14:06
Tab Norris
No, your podcast.
14:08
Tom Stanfill
I’m going to share as me blowing it after this.
14:11
Tab Norris
Well, I, this was somebody that I managed. This was not that long ago and we’re just going to call him Billy.
14:20
Tom Stanfill
Okay. Millennial name, Billy. That’s a very common millennial name.
14:24
Tab Norris
He worked for me and he drove me insane. He drove me crazy. I mean, literally he was, we fought about everything. He never wanted to do anything the way that we did it, we had it set up the way he turned his expenses the way he, I mean, just, I don’t, I’m different. I don’t have to operate within any of the rules. So, and it was just this constant. I was just telling him, and he was always telling me why he was right. I was telling why he was wrong. It was just back and forth back. And I finally am sick of it. I went to somebody that respect that I worked closely with his name’s Tom Stanfill. I, I said, I got to get rid of this guy. I know he’s good, but he’s, I’m done. I’m just letting you know.
15:06
Tom Stanfill
Driving me crazy.
15:07
Tab Norris
Crazy. You said to me, oh wise one, I think you had a pipe in your mouth. You were…
15:13
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. I had a, probably a patch on my jacket. A backpack on my elbows. Yes.
15:18
Tab Norris
And you said, hey, I get it. I know. I do whatever you want to do. I’m sure you’ve taken the trip with him. You you’ve kind of understood his perspective and you’ve done that. I, and I was like, I don’t want to take the trip. I know I’m supposed to, I don’t want to, I know his perspective. I know exactly what I need to know and I’m sick of it, but I’m like, what? Okay. I went to him and I said, let’s go get a cup of coffee and let’s talk through this. And I just listened to him. And I said, listen, Billy, listen, I know we’ve gone back. I’m sorry. I’m sure I have been hard-headed and I, haven’t never really taken the time to understand your perspective. Right. And, and I want you to tell me why we should do it your way. Cause maybe you’re right. And I’m telling you, he just launched. He told me the 700 reasons and it, and I just listened and we finally get to the, and here’s the reality. He had a couple of good points. I learned a couple of things that made me go well, dang, that’s a, I, oh, I didn’t think about it like that. It reminded me, Tom, something in the book.
16:32
Tom Stanfill
I’m surprised, oh, well you’ve been with me too long.
16:38
Tab Norris
How do I not read this? Anyway, you were talking about one of the barrier one, how you kind of break down the barriers thing. The trip was, I know what they are going to say. That was my barrier. I knew exactly what Billy was going to say. I heard him say it a thousand times, but guess what? I did miss a couple of things. Oh, oops. I mean, I love what you say in here, intimate details about their priorities, their wants their needs, their stock strongly held biases. I knew this from Billy. That may all be true, but you still need to take the trip and validate the information you gained by taking the trip is secondary to the emotional connection and receptivity that occurs when you set aside your agenda, your beautifully crafted bits and validate their point of view. Remember that their willingness to listen is always more important than your ability to communicate.
17:31
Tab Norris
I’m telling you, and here’s the great end of that story. It all turned around after that.
17:39
Tom Stanfill
And?
17:39
Tab Norris
It worked. We had a great relationship for a year, a couple of years after that, before he moved into something else.
17:46
Tom Stanfill
And you know, I love that. Why that works is because it’s not manipulation.
17:51
Tab Norris
No.
17:52
Tom Stanfill
It’s, it’s like, you couldn’t have faked that. Like, okay, let me do this. Take the trip thing and…
17:56
Tab Norris
Kind of probably did fake it before. You know what I mean? Yeah. I couldn’t tell you that because I knew I hadn’t really taken the trip.
18:05
Tom Stanfill
Well, anyways, we’re talking about, if anybody’s listening is not familiar with this concept, the “take the trip” comes from this idea that you there’s two polarized points of view. If you’re the one that’s trying to influence the other person you’re on the north pole, right. They’re on the south pole and you have two very different polarized points of view. When we, and I, I think this that’s always true when we seek to influence, because to me influencing someone is about changing their beliefs. It’s about helping them see something different. There’s always two polarized points of view. When you’re just telling somebody what you can do for them, and they already want that. I want this. Tell me what it does. Great. You’re you’re not influencing. You’re just answering questions, which is fine. That’s part of our role in selling, but influence, you see it differently.
18:54
Tom Stanfill
I want to change your point of view. So we teach. As part of obviously the book is you got to take the trip and articulate their point of view as well or better. I think, can you bring this up in your story tab? I think this is it’s the hardest to do with the people that we know.
19:08
Tab Norris
Oh yeah.
19:09
Tom Stanfill
I mean with my wife, I mean, I’ve called you, I’m sure I’ve called you. I’ve been taking the trip with my wife or my kid. It’s so hard to do. I had a situation with my daughter and part of her punishment because of something that she did. I don’t really remember what it was. I think she lost her car.
19:31
Tab Norris
No, actually in the woods she wrecked her car.
19:38
Tom Stanfill
That’s what it was. She wrecked her car.
It was because she was driving recklessly. She wrecked it. And so she didn’t have a car. She had to drive her brother’s car. Her brother’s car was a 19, I don’t know, 82 Nova. I mean, I’m making this up. I don’t know what it was, but it was, it was not cool. I mean, that car probably was worth $300. I mean, it was ugly. She wouldn’t drive that car. And, and my, it just like you, it’s like, it’s quicker to say, look, just drive the car. That’s ridiculous. You’re the one that wrecked your car. You need a ride drive that car. I could have done that dad thing. It takes time, and I already know what she’s going to say and loud, I want it, but I don’t want to drive that car. Cause it makes me look like, but so I did what you said. I took the trip, sat down with her and let’s just talk about this. Right? Let’s talk about this. I’m going to set my agenda side, my little speech. She opens up to me and basically starts to reveal insecurities and how she thinks she compares to her brothers and how other people have other things that make that tell them they’re okay.
21:00
Tom Stanfill
And she doesn’t. She, I mean, she completely opened up about her fears. I mean, and I started seeing the connection. Like went to the mall and went shopping for their mother. We bought something. I remember we bought a bracelet for my wife and my daughter at Tiffany’s and it wasn’t that, I mean, I may have been 80 bucks, the cheapest thing you can buy Tiffany’s but it, but she had the little Tiffany’s bag and she would carry that. But she wanted to carry that bag.
21:27
Tab Norris
Oh wow. Which what a great story. I mean, cause there’s so much down there’s so much there that we don’t even realize and it’s extremely powerful.
21:38
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. When they tell you and you have this oh moment – oh, i see. You feed it back to them and they say “Exactly.” Now they’re ready.
They’re ready to hear your point of view, but it’s very counter-intuitive.
21:55
Tab Norris
Well, let me here, I’m going to ask you since you’re a great big writer, you’re like.
22:00
Tom Stanfill
Large writer.
22:02
Tab Norris
How do we do it? You got anything for us? Like help us do this better. How do we pull this off?
22:08
Tom Stanfill
Well, I think three words come to mind. Part of it’s in the book, part of it’s based on what you said a minute ago, first it was watch. I think people will start to give you clues, like Tyndall wanting to carry the Tiffany’s bag. Why did she have such a visceral reaction to driving that car tells me there’s more going on. If you’re dealing with a customer, why do they ask questions about that? Why did they respond a certain way? Why was there that facial expression? Why did they just tune out? Or, or why do they look over to another person when they talk? He’s like there’s, there’s things that you observe that tell you that there’s more going on. We get out of our, I got to sell you something and I got to tell you a story, or I got to pitch my stuff.
22:55
Tom Stanfill
You start to see some, and then that directs you into this other world where there’s something else going on. The other thing we need to give this as part of what we talk about, the book is how we ask questions.
23:07
Tab Norris
Okay.
23:09
Tom Stanfill
I think how we ask questions gets people to open up. Like if we just ask, I mean, I’m sorry, just self centered questions are questions that are helpful to us. They’re not very interested in answering those questions, but if we can ask questions and position them in a way that it’s about them and it’s clearly about them or it’s about helping them, they’re gonna be more interested in than answering those questions.
23:43
Tab Norris
When I wrote out my 17 questions and I just kind of read through them that, that was not good.
23:51
Tom Stanfill
Well it’s, we’re fighting this gravity. That’s always grab a different gravitational pull to self. We ask questions because we know what we want to uncover. What’s the what’s hard for us is to think of five words before every question. The reason I’m asking is…
24:08
Tab Norris
Okay.
24:11
Tom Stanfill
The reason I’m asking is… if I can ask those, if I can use that phrase, whether you use it or not. I can, I want to, like, I remember meeting with an organization that was interested in sales training, but they weren’t interested in leadership development. If I start asking questions about leadership development, they’re going to go, why are we talking about that? Trying to sell me more stuff. I said, I want to talk to you about your leadership. Why don’t you address those questions? Because 50% of the success of this project is going to be based on what happens after training change happens. One-to-one not in a workshop. Tell me what you’re going to do to support your leaders.
24:54
Tab Norris
There you go.
24:56
Tom Stanfill
Versus, Hey, what about leadership training?
24:59
Tab Norris
We got another, we have another solution called leadership training.
25:02
Tom Stanfill
More money if you buy it.
25:03
Tab Norris
Right? Right.
25:04
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
25:05
Tab Norris
Yeah. That’s a great example. That’s it? Okay. How we ask questions kind of why…
25:13
Tom Stanfill
There’s the, which probably is equally important is what do you, how do you respond? So watch, lead. How you respond is really ultimately what is going to get somebody to tell you the unfiltered truth. I think this last piece probably where we blow it the most is what do we say after they say something and a lot of times it’s what do we say when they give us the wrong answers?
25:41
Tab Norris
Right? Right.
25:42
Tom Stanfill
Like that’s not what you’re supposed to say. Like of your fear, your example of the rep talking to the doctor, the physician, if he says, if the first thing he says, Hey, Alison, I want to talk to you about this third product that we have, that you’re not buying it kind of what you’re thinking and blah, blah. He goes, yeah, I really liked competitor’s problem. It’s a product. That’s what I really like. And that’s what we’ve chosen to do. Right? You can either say, well, you shouldn’t, that’s the wrong answer. Or you can say, okay, well, that’s very interesting.
26:17
Tab Norris
Yeah. Or you could do it. He did. And you ignore it. You just go back to the script that you throw up on. Yeah. That’s it, like punch the button here. It comes. There we go.
26:32
Tom Stanfill
If you realize that your goal is not to sell first, your goal is to get the truth. So change your objective. Your goal is to get them to tell you the truth. You need their viewpoint. If you don’t know it, just think about the political discussions that we have. We fire back something. The, the counter-argument and when argument starts influence ends versus somebody that’s saying, okay, why do you feel that way? Which is so simple to understand this idea. It is so hard to do it though.
27:06
Tab Norris
So yeah, I agree. And, and that’s, it’s great that we’re talking about it and putting those things out there, but you’re right. It doesn’t end. You don’t go. Oh, got it. Tom just told me, gave me the secret sauce. Now it’s done. You’re going to have to practice it. Right. We’re going to have to work on it. We’re going to have to kind of make it an ongoing process. That’s well, any, I had any kinda, I always love to end with this, like final, what I mean? Like the big takeaway, you’re, you’ve given us some incredible insights here that we want to watch, that we want to ask. We want to lead or respond that we need to take the trip with our customers. Is there kind of a big takeaway?
27:50
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. This, this, what comes to mind based on our topic today Tab, is there’s going to be a word that I’m about to use that everybody’s going to go well, that’s, I knew that. You’re not going to write it down. You’re going to go. Like, it’s going to be, I mean, I’ve been along with you, we’ve been teaching workshops now for what? I don’t know. I guess, I don’t know too many years to count. What I’ve mentioned this word in the workshop, everybody goes, whatever. I mean, it’s almost like a liner. I just say, you need to eat your vegetables. Like, here’s what, here’s the thing that everybody struggled with, including me on a daily basis, it’s listening. It is so difficult to listen. We are hard wired not to listen. Our brain fills in all the missing pieces because our brain works like that.
28:53
Tom Stanfill
You could say our computer works like our brain, right. Once we go to a website, it downloads everything in cache. So it just speeds everything up. So I don’t have to download it again. If I go to a hotel website, we’re talking about going to San Diego and I go to that hotel website to look at a hotel where we’re going to stay in the car. My computer’s gonna download that information. I want to go back to that website. It’s fast. It doesn’t have to download it again. Our brain does the exact same thing. As soon as someone starts telling you a story, just like Billy starts telling you a story and I’ll share an example of this, where I failed in a second. We don’t, our brain says, don’t download that again. You’ve already heard that. Save time. You don’t need to hear that again.
29:34
Tom Stanfill
When my wife starts telling me the story about she’s frustrated with so-and-so, I go, I don’t want you to download that again. What we have to do is clear our cache, because if we don’t clear our cache and download the story again, like we’ve never heard it before. This is really difficult for veterans. We will not hear it. We will not listen. We will miss something. Not only will we miss it, they can tell that we’re not downloading the information they can tell we’re going, “this story will be over in three minutes. The story will be over in two minutes. The story will be over in one minute.” I’m working on what I’m going to say. They can tell all that, because motive is ultimately transparent. They can sense it. This happened to me a couple of years ago, I was meeting with Sharpe who was a client, but I was working with a different division.
30:28
Tom Stanfill
I flew down to Tampa to meet with this guy. And he was the vice president. He was prepping me to meet with the head decision maker, the head of the division. He says, we, I’m listening to what he says. I take the trip I got what’s important. And then he says this. He says, by the way, the senior VP who you’re going to meet with, doesn’t like PowerPoint. I’m like, okay, I don’t need to download that again. I, I know what you mean by that.
30:56
Tab Norris
Yeah. I’ve been doing this a while. I know what you mean. No death by PowerPoint probably. Right? Is that what you’re saying?
31:01
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. No death by PowerPoint. I mean, don’t bring up 30 slides.
31:06
Tab Norris
Right.
31:06
Tom Stanfill
Don’t, don’t bring, just not death. I go, I know what you mean. I’m like, look, dude, I know how to do this. Right. I know how to, I’ve done this a lot. I’ve heard that literally, probably 30 times and people. Yeah. So, so I got it. Great. I got that. What that really means is I didn’t listen. So I didn’t clear my cache. I didn’t say, what do you mean by he doesn’t like PowerPoint.Why does he say that? Where did that come from? Why is that? So what do you mean? I’ve heard this before, but I’m gonna start so fast forward. I walked into this guy’s office. There’s 10 people in the room, including the guy I met with in Tampa. I get on my computer. Were you there? By the way?
31:50
Tab Norris
I was there in this meeting?
31:54
Tom Stanfill
I think Billy was there too.
31:58
Tab Norris
I think Billy was there.
32:04
Tom Stanfill
I pull up my computer, plug it in and pull up PowerPoint,
32:10
Tab Norris
Just one slide or two slides.
32:14
Tom Stanfill
I spent hours on showing how it was going to be act. I brought, I had a golf club in the room. We had all kinds of, cause we’re going to show them how interactive it was. As soon as I opened that PowerPoint, the entire room went like the temperature just completely changed. What he meant was which I found out very quickly (because the meeting was over). What he meant was I hate PowerPoint, do not show even one PowerPoint slide. The other company that we’re working with, the unfiltered truth that we are considering using uses only uses interactive exercises. There is no PowerPoint. The whole entire thing is interactive. It’s the people at the table interacting and learning that way. It’s all simulation-based training. And that’s what I want. That’s what I want. I don’t want any PowerPoint. If I would’ve done a better job of taking the trip and listening and discovering them, I would’ve walked in and said, this is what you believe.
We would have had a completely different meeting. So that’s my failure story.
33:14
Tab Norris
Yeah, boy, that’s a good, I mean, we learn as we learn more from our failures, don’t we. You and I, you, and I’ve been doing this a long time and we’re sharing failures stories.
33:23
Tom Stanfill
Oh yeah. We will. We’ll always fail.. I think that’s, the key is, is watching the, watch the game films. Like here’s what a lot of people do. I think this probably has more to do with our performance than maybe anything we ever talk about is they watch the game films. Instead of saying, “well, that guy was an idiot…”
33:45
Tab Norris
Right?
33:46
Tom Stanfill
“You can’t do training without PowerPoint. Of course you can’t do it. There’s a reason it’s because you can’t customize the program. You can’t be based on simulators. Here’s the, where he was wrong. And I was right. And he’s an idiot,” versus… “Tab, What did I do wrong? How could I have done that differently? I blew it. That was my fault. I can get better.” That’s where we get better. As we realize, we learned, like you said, we learned from our failures.
34:06
Tab Norris
Yeah. That’s good. Well man, great stuff. I think that’s a great finishing takeaway listening. I mean, that’s it, I mean, it was just, let’s all work on listening better and that’s going to solve…
34:18
Tom Stanfill
Take the trip. So watch what’s happening. Look for the unfiltered. Look for the clues that something’s going on. Ask better questions and how you respond, which has to do with obviously listening and communicating that you get it. I think that’s the key to discovering unfiltered truth.
34:35
Tab Norris
Excellent. Great. Well, Tom, I enjoyed our time together. This was fantastic. I hope everybody got up a takeaway or two and we look forward to the next episode.
34:46
Tom Stanfill
Thanks, my friend, loved being with you as always. Thanks guys for joining us. If you find the podcast helpful, remember to like it and share it. We know to keep doing this or leave us some comments and tell us what you want us to, what topics you’d like us to uncover. Anything you want to share where we always read those.
